Voluntary reduction in bot advert rate

[LabRat]

I am henceforth adjusting Agneum and Titanta's advert frequency on channel 3 to every 2 hours. I hope other owners follow suit before the g0ds realise how bad it is getting

 

Hope your lip gets better blee

[Infamous]

moving to another channel is a better solution IMO.

ignoring all bots gets annoying, and not being able to buy/sell things cause your msg gets overrun with botmssg's too xD

 

anyway GJ Labrat, i hope more will follow

Edited December 15, 2007 by Hardcore

[eagleprince]

You realise there isn't a single player advert in that lot?

 

No wonder I can't sell anything on @3 the rare ocassions when I try!

[Wizzy]

Weaselturd's adverts time has been increased. Good suggestion labrat. I hope others follow.

 

Jumpy

[DogBreath]

I'm inclined to agree with Hardcore's suggestion of moving to another channel, either the bots, or the player market (separate channels for each, no bots on player channel and no players on bot channel...) Players could watch the bot channel and interact with the bots they choose to, but wouldn't advertise on that channel.

 

Here's why. When our bot started advertising on channel 3, activity nearly doubled. Also, when the bot advertises (every 15 minutes currently) that's when she gets most of her inquiries. However, I find it extremely difficult to sell something from my character on channel 3, so I do see the issue.

 

If I want to buy something from that channel, I turn it on and ping the bots going by with wanted until I see the list repeat. But before I even try that, I use Rraisa (who our bot is hooked into, btw...) When i'm done checking the bots I turn channel 3 off as it is a spam factory.

 

I'm not sure I see the reluctance to hook bots up to Rraisa, but that's a different topic.

 

Just my 2 gc worth... But I don't think I'll be reducing our bot's advertising below 15 minutes.

Edited December 10, 2007 by DogBreath

[Acelon]

We had a newbie on channel 1 yesterday asking for the worth of fire essences...

 

As usual, I told him to go to channel 3 and ask.

 

His response...

"How would a bot give a price check?"

 

 

 

It's bad when even the new players noticed.

[masterpiter]

You realise there isn't a single player advert in that lot?

 

No wonder I can't sell anything on @3 the rare ocassions when I try!

No1 is able to survive market channel bot-spamm for long, so most ppl do like me: #jc 3, advertise fast, than quick #lc 3, no wonder very less ppl see players adds

And then mixers/harvesters r wondering why ppl dont buy their goods

 

El forums marketplace helps a lot but its rather for big purchases/sales, ppl who sell/buy low quantities or not expensive items have to sell to bots coz almost no real players on market channel, bots made most humans run away

 

mp

[bkc56]

ignoring all bots gets annoying...

It isn't annoying to me. It took me a couple hours one day doing a #ignore on every bot ad I saw go by for things to get real quiet on 3. I have a very few bots of interest turned on, and all the rest of the ads are real people (and the occasional new bot that comes on-line and gets #ignore'ed).

 

And we increased our two bot's ad delay the last time this topic came up. But if enough owners jump in, we'll increase it some more.

[robotbob]

I increase our bots delay to 1 Hour + 1-30 mins. The only purpose for our market channel

message now is to show the bots location. Our bot (mattamus) is now a location bot , much like agneum.

 

I do find we get invs and wanted after every market message. However I don't

like the idea the bot is being #ignore'd.

 

But everytime someone says "move the bots and or players to another channel" just say, bots can't advertise.

Who is going to join the official bot channel? Its a free market both in advertising and trade.

 

You realise there isn't a single player advert in that lot?

 

There are 3 real people advertising in that screenshot.

[Aislinn]

I'm inclined to agree with Hardcore's suggestion of moving to another channel, either the bots, or the player market ...<snip>

Ehhhh not exactly his suggestion:

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=30486

 

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=32164

 

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=35100

[DogBreath]

moving to another channel is a better solution IMO.

<snip>...

 

 

I'm inclined to agree with Hardcore's suggestion of moving to another channel, either the bots, or the player market ...<snip>

Ehhhh not exactly his suggestion:

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=30486

 

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=32164

 

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=35100

 

Good information, ty for the links I see what you mean that he wasn't the first to suggest this, but I hadn't seen those posts before.

Edited December 11, 2007 by DogBreath

[nicky]

IRON took a vote and decided to change charn and shari to 45 minutes, we'll see how it goes and take another vote next week.

[TheComet]

Less bot ads would be great, or an eventual way of seperating both bots and players within a channel (colored names for bots perhaps?) would do wonders.

 

I havn't been able to do a price check in @@3 in over a month now, and I've asked at least 3 PCs on there each session

[nathanstenzel]

I am not sure a different channel for bot spam is the solution. Although it would make channel 3 usable by humans, it would still be one useless channel (for the bots). Maybe I am just nuts though. I think what we need is a website where the bots can list their inventory and prices would be better. If you can click on all the bot names to go to their listing, there is not need for them to even have a market channel. Players could be on that page too, but in a different section for live people. The market channel is really a limited marketing method anyways.

 

If we can't arrange the website for the bots, I guess a separate channel will work for the meantime though.

Edited December 15, 2007 by nathanstenzel

[Ghrae]

I've thought about such a web page before, even talked to a few bot owners. The key problem is that it creates price wars. People and bot owners check other bots that are selling the same item. And lower their prices right below someone elses.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of a site to help bot owners and reduce the market channel clutter... but any idea has to be a win/win (for players and bot owners) without killing the ecnomy

[sithicus]

Yup. This discussion has been there in several forms and it usually leads to a fierce forum war and long lasting feuds.

 

I turned off the advertisements for my bot because of the market spam, probably she is still blacklisted by most, but there are enough customers anyhow. But if we can make a gentleman agreement on going to once several hours instead of once every 15 minutes, I'll happily use market channel again.

Edited December 15, 2007 by sithicus

[Ghrae]

And FYI... if as a group, the bot owners can come up with an idea like the web page, that is good for bot owners, players and the economy, I will gladly help by adding it to www.el-cel.com. But it has to be fair to everyone. I'm definitely interested in ideas.

[DarElik]

Less bot ads would be great, or an eventual way of seperating both bots and players within a channel (colored names for bots perhaps?) would do wonders.

 

I like the different colored names in the channels idea! They already have different colored names over their heads like the NPCs, would be nice (and quite helpful) to have them different in the channels also.

 

Could help new ppl identify them easier also and after a while of looking at it like that, I think we'd have an automatic eye-filter when looking at chat. Like we do now between PMs, guildchat, local, etc.. An unconscious color separation.

 

I'd love to see this at least tried for awhile. Maybe bot names in light purple in active channel and dark purple in the others (like the greyed-out effect we have now), but the message text could stay the same.

[sithicus]

And FYI... if as a group, the bot owners can come up with an idea like the web page, that is good for bot owners, players and the economy, I will gladly help by adding it to www.el-cel.com. But it has to be fair to everyone. I'm definitely interested in ideas.

 

Ok... how about a page that lists all bots with a clickable link that has semi real-time inventory info (semi meaning not month old but maybe day old)

Edited December 18, 2007 by sithicus

[Ghrae]

This has been proposed and a sampling of bot owners did not like it.

 

I believe the major issue is that it creates too easy a method of checking which bots sell item_x, comparing their prices, and buying from only the lowest one. Which creates a price war.

[Lexi]

Less bot ads would be great, or an eventual way of seperating both bots and players within a channel (colored names for bots perhaps?) would do wonders.

 

I like the different colored names in the channels idea! They already have different colored names over their heads like the NPCs, would be nice (and quite helpful) to have them different in the channels also.

 

Could help new ppl identify them easier also and after a while of looking at it like that, I think we'd have an automatic eye-filter when looking at chat. Like we do now between PMs, guildchat, local, etc.. An unconscious color separation.

 

I'd love to see this at least tried for awhile. Maybe bot names in light purple in active channel and dark purple in the others (like the greyed-out effect we have now), but the message text could stay the same.

 

 

This is actually possible, if you know how to use the global filters. I learned how to use it. See here;

 

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.p...st&p=376226

 

Always back up the file before working on it in case you screw something up.

[Usalfin]

I suggested the color change for the bot names months ago, it got shot down.

 

Ok, I dont know if this has been suggested, I have looked thru the market channel suggestions and didn't see it.

 

I know that there has been talk about a different "Bot Channel" and I think that could work, but if the devs dont like it, how about making the bot chat a different color, so its easier to tell who are players, and who are bots. it drives me crazy when your posts are being drowned out by the bots, atleast if your text is a differnt color players my pay more attention to the players posts.I see alot of players put "I am not a bot" into there posts.

 

I would prefer the whole message to be a different colour (personally "dimmed") as it is much easier for your eyes to ignore different colours, rather than having to check the name before filtering. I am thinking of something similar to when you change active channels and the text changes from white to grey.

Meh my inactive channels still have white text, only the names dim to grey.

 

And just a note about colored chat in channels/wherever, the reason we don't do it now is because radu/roja didn't like it at all when we were using it before. I would expect this would apply to bots in public channels as well. Just a thought for when you all are planning on the standard color, you are probably best off making it subtle.